Scoot Insights left CRC 2017 flying high

Scoot Insights left CRC 2017 flying high

Congratulations to the Insights Association for designing a truly memorable conference – it was definitely worth Scooting to Chicago for the many moments that made this a great experience.

It turns out Dan Heath, best selling author of The Power of Moments was right when he shared his 4 types of moments that can lead to a great experience – this conference had them all in abundance. “Elevation, insight, pride and connection!” We loved his term “whelmed,” (as in not underwhelmed or overwhelmed) to describe the neutral state of customer experience where any product or service is meeting your basic expectations. However, he suggested that companies tend to put too much focus (80% of effort) on overcoming issues to get the majority of customers to a “whelmed” state, rather than planning for exceptional moments of extreme pleasure that will have a disproportionately positive and lasting impact on your brand’s image (think Southwest’s flight attendant’s rap delivery of the otherwise boring standard message of all the services available during your flight, or butler delivered popsicles right to the poolside for kids at the press of a button at the Magic Castle Hotel!)

There were too many memorable moments to share quickly, but a few highlights included Judd Antin who brought us a refreshingly irreverent perspective on the world of research providing us with a glimpse of life as Director of Research at Airbnb, which he states, is like “catnip for a researcher.” Customer research is held in high esteem from the very top and through the experience of being embedded throughout the fabric of the organization. Understanding the needs, motivations and desires of their guests and hosts globally to create the best Airbnb experience possible is at the heart of their success. Judd, Rick Malins from Facebook Insights and Amelia Eddelman from Google’s Brand Studio all reminded us that research should not be used to “validate hypotheses” but to inspire them, inform them and challenge them.

Professor Ravi Dhar, of Yale School of Management had some interesting reminders that “nudges” have to be in alignment with people’s long-term goals to be effective. He also visually demonstrated to all of us that system 1 way of communication can attempt to nudge behavior by tapping into our system 1 way of communicating inspiring an intuitive and automatic response (particularly with pleasure not pain), rather than attempt to tap into our system 2 rationalized response by overloading us with information. System 1 communication approaches should be effortless to understand, but of course, getting it right is hard to achieve.

A quick call out to Susan Fader, a fellow QRCA member, in whose presentation on “How Brands Can Reconsider The Way They Think About People” she shared the concept of using “self-alignment” as a key component in recruiting participants to ensure we don’t misclassify people with our own biases.